Sony is the number two smartphone manufacturer in India by value of sales, leap frogging over Apple

Samsung is the largest smartphone manufacturer in India. But when Sammy looks down, it no longer sees Apple chasing it. Instead, Japanese manufacturer Sony has surpassed Apple to become the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the country. Sony has been able to leap over the producer of the iPhone, by concentrating on low priced handsets in the range of 10,000 ($166 USD) Rs to 20,000 Rs. ($333 USD). A 300 Crore ($65 million) marketing campaign also helped.

According to research firm IDC, based on the value of phones sold, Sony's share of the Indian smartphone market hit 9.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013. While that was well behind Samsung's 43% slice of the Indian smartphone pie, it was 2.1 percentage points ahead of Apple's 7% share for the three months ended in December.

Looking at the actual number of phones sold in the fourth quarter, Samsung was on top with a 38% share. Micromax was next with 13%, followed by Sony and Apple. The two had volume shares of 5.5% and 2% of the Indian smartphone market, respectively.

The top phones for Sony in India during that quarter, were the Sony Xperia M Dual and the Sony Xperia C. For the quarter that just ended in March, analysts say that Sony was hurt by Apple's re-release of the Apple iPhone 4 in the country, as an entry-level model priced at $375. In addition, the forked-Android powered Nokia X could also have been a tough challenger for Sony's entry-level Android phones in the region.

"Some of the top selling models for Sony are Xperia M Dual and Xperia C priced in this bracket, which is one of the fastest growing segments in the Indian smartphone market."-Manasi Yadav, senior market analyst, IDC India

They buy it because of the cheap price and yes, the brand (which is Samsung). I think the 43% who got Samsung are mostly low to mid end phones, same goes to Sony, the top seller Sony phones in India are Xperia C and M Dual which is cheap.

No it is sony had better low end phones....i have seen many with xperia E..but when they want to buy mid range and flagship smartphones most of then end up with samsung...that's how it is in india....but with moto g's arrival sony should be careful....

Apple is more popular than Sony in India... so your argument is void... However i completely understand the girl in you siding apple..
unlock phone
open facebook, twitter
lock phone
iphone suits this best...

You are wrong here buddy.. Apple is the brand here where People Show off ... Sony is successful because in 2013 it had the best value for money phones.. Xperia M just had no competition until moto G. Xperia C was the only decent 5 incher branded smartphone until galaxy grand 2.arrived. Xperia SP the best Performance phone.. then Xperia ZR . Sony phones were a lot cheaper than samsung counterparts.. that's why the success

I'm sure that Nokia X, X+, and XL will stuck forever in 4.1.2, thanks to the crappy Snapdragon S4 Play. Even Mediatek chipsets are more reliable than S4 play, Cortex-A5 is the worst ARMv7 CPU in the world.

It seems like it isnt even running android. Just a dumb OS with .apk support a.k.a. Android apps. And mediatek is crap. They just seem to have good configuration with quad core and dual core. But they all still lag. And also no source code drivers meaning no custom rom.

Only in chipset because they use quality snapdragon kraits. But what about the displays. Compare a galaxy grand to xperia c(dont bring resolution argument contrast, colors and viewing angles is more important), xperia m and galaxy core. The truth is some of the cheap chinese OEMs make higher quality 1080p display than sony's xperia z and z1 which are more than twice pricier. And its sad to hear this.

Good point. As far as I am aware Sony's phone always shine on specs sheet but fail in real life.

A very mediocre UI with constant lags and home screen redraws (coming from an owner of Xperia mini). Generally speaking their displays are very bad with washed out colours and not so bright displays (when it comes to mid-rangers)

Xperia Mini is a bit too old I suppose. To be honest, only people like us really care about displays being good at 180 degree angle or not. My dad didn't even say anything about the display when he changed from Xperia Play to Xperia SP. As for lag, there is very little lag.

Well, the incredible success of the Moto G (in UK Motorola went from 0 to 6% of the market in a few months) proves that lots of people don't want to spend much on a smartphone and simply want something that works well.
And now that the hardware has become cheaper and it's possible to sell usable smartphones for under $200, many people are starting to think: why should I pay more if a $200 phone does all I want and does it well?

29.AppleHateBoy (unregistered)

Wanted to get the Z2 but Im pretty sure sales is not going to be that good in the USA. Don't really want to be that guy who uses a phone no one ever heard off ( Bsides techies). Sony should do more marketing here in the US like Samsung, literally an ad everywhere. Apple and Samsung prove if you do enough marketing, ppl starts buying. HTC is just starting to learn that.

Dude thats sad. Personally i dont care what people say. I buy what i like not what is popular. Some fool friends ask me which phone is that (moto g) they say lol that company is long dead. But i dont give them a damn. But its z2 i bet everybody in the US knows sony as a electronics company. So i dont see a problem there.

You got me wrong. EX: Most of my friends are not that type of person who follows tech news. If I use the more popular phones, we can actually talk about phones in real life scenarios even if they are not tech savey. Phone to me is for social purposes and i would like to discuss with friends in real life about the pros and cons of the phone. They might even be able to help me out with the phone, and teach me something. If I use the Z2 and everyone uses the S5,HTC new 1,iphone. How am I suppose to discuss with my friends? Like I mention before most ppl only recognize a phone from the marketings. Sony is a nice company and I have many products from then (TV,PS1-4,laptop,etc). However in the mobile department Sony need to start marketing like its Japan in America. Apple and Samsung are able to dominate the world mobile market due to literally shove it up ur face ads and a company like Sony with quality product should step up its marketing game. Sony has the money for marketing too.

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